Tabletop Games Thread

[mAc Chaos]

That is because you aren’t supposed to fit every check to a skill. The default is actually most using raw ability scores, like how most adventures (but not all) use simple Strength checks to break down doors, rather than Athletics. Its definition is actually rather narrow, sticking to sporting type activities, but people mistakenly try to fit as many Strength based actions into it for the bonus. So it is fine if you just did a raw Intelligence check rather than trying to torture the definitions to fit every check. For example, if a character wants to make a roll to see if they remember an obscure detail from a past session (assuming you just don’t give it to them), there is no skill for how sharp their recollections are — just doing a raw Intelligence check there would make sense.

For this specific example though… the description of History speaks of knowledge of legendary people (guild founders), past disputes, and historical events, so it seems pretty clear cut History to me.

[Mattias]

Isn't that the exact sort of thing a DM is for? To provide a Word of God for ambiguous situations?

[Deathhappens]

Most of the people in my RPG circle are sick and tired of 5e's simplicity after going through however many campaigns or one-shots or sessions, while the Ravnica campaign is my first time with the system.

People are playing anything from V5, W20, M20 and MtAw, to Mutants & Masterminds, Pathfinder 2e, Tormenta 20, Scion, and a superhero game that I don't recall the system right now.

Also my V5 campaign was cancelled by the ST but one of the players is cooking a Vampire the Requiem campaign set in São Paulo and starting off with players in a deadly scavenger hunt in an abandoned mental hospital for the right to not get executed for being unauthorized post-Pandemic embraces.

That's just it isn't it? As much as I initially lauded 5e as a good way to simplify the endless +2 -2's of 3.5 and get more people play the game without needing three days work to plan out a build, in the long term it flat out failed to iterate on the basics it set up on any meaningful level. Feats remained something only certain classes could afford while only a handful of them were ever worth taking, no meaningful skill system manifested beyond what you took at 1st level, and multiclassing remained either hardcore powergaming or kneecapping your character, no in-betweens.

[Bloble]

Isn't that the exact sort of thing a DM is for? To provide a Word of God for ambiguous situations?

It's become an increasingly common opinion that a DM shouldn't and shouldn't have to be Word of God. 5e was built around rulings over rules, but many people dislike that and would prefer rules over rulings - see PF2e for an example of such a system. The rules over rulings belief argues that this creates a more consistent play experience and takes the burden off of the DM, both because they don't have to make decisions on the spot, which might turn out to be unfair or flawed or require extra work on their part, and because players can't blame them when things go awry, since a system or rule is to blame, not the referee.

Personally I'm rulings over rules all the way. You don't need a subsystem for every little interaction, and the ability to just wing it is an important thing for every DM to learn and become comfortable with.

[Deathhappens]

Weird artefact? Sure, if they roll "design a weird artefact" on the loot table for the hoard they just unearthed.

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I'm also with mac here, 5e's simplicity is its actual best selling point, and I find complicated "builds" and new character option releases to be tiring.

The thing is, unlike stuff like Knives in the Dark, Fate, Savage Worlds et al, D&D has always been a mechanics first type of RPG. 5e streamlined and simplified the mechanics but didn't add much of anything (beyond Backgrounds, which was easily the best designed feature of the edition and thus the most neglected in subsequent releases) to replace them.

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It's become an increasingly common opinion that a DM shouldn't and shouldn't have to be Word of God. 5e was built around rulings over rules, but many people dislike that and would prefer rules over rulings - see PF2e for an example of such a system. The rules over rulings belief argues that this creates a more consistent play experience and takes the burden off of the DM, both because they don't have to make decisions on the spot, which might turn out to be unfair or flawed or require extra work on their part, and because players can't blame them when things go awry, since a system or rule is to blame, not the referee.

Personally I'm rulings over rules all the way. You don't need a subsystem for every little interaction, and the ability to just wing it is an important thing for every DM to learn and become comfortable with.

Rulings over rules is fine, but 5e fails to give baselines for almost anything that isn't basic dungeon crawling. To issue rulings you generally need to have something to base them on.

[Five_X]

If you want to DM and you can't figure out rulings for a fairly straightforward game like 5e you probably don't have the creativity to make the most of running the game in the first place.

[Ratman]

It's become an increasingly common opinion that a DM shouldn't and shouldn't have to be Word of God. 5e was built around rulings over rules, but many people dislike that and would prefer rules over rulings - see PF2e for an example of such a system. The rules over rulings belief argues that this creates a more consistent play experience and takes the burden off of the DM, both because they don't have to make decisions on the spot, which might turn out to be unfair or flawed or require extra work on their part, and because players can't blame them when things go awry, since a system or rule is to blame, not the referee.

Personally I'm rulings over rules all the way. You don't need a subsystem for every little interaction, and the ability to just wing it is an important thing for every DM to learn and become comfortable with.

It's a question of bad GM vs. bad system, then.

A bad GM ruins the game every time. A good system can never improve his garbage fire navigation if he doesn't want it to.
A bad system, meanwhile, can be fixed with rulings, even though it won't be great.

[mAc Chaos]

Rulings over rules is fine, but 5e fails to give baselines for almost anything that isn't basic dungeon crawling. To issue rulings you generally need to have something to base them on.

You don't need rules for rulings. What you base it on is your own judgment and goals for what kind of game you want. In fact, the less rules there are, the more you have rulings. So obviously you can have them without a lot of rules. This requires consideration of what you want and what's good for the game, but it's a necessary skill for DMs.

For example, in my Diablo game, the party was fighting some invisible monsters. Bloble decided to use pocket sand to try and reveal the location of the invisible enemy. There wasn't anything in the rules about it or how such a thing would interact or even work, but logically, I reasoned that the sand would create a silhouette of the enemy and highlight its location. You could have ruled that the way the invisibility worked would have blended in with the sand and not done anything, but it was how I decided to rule the way invisibility worked with that creature, in the moment. Either option would have been fine, ruling wise. It wasn't about thinking of how Rule A and Rule B work but how the scenario would work if it was real and then translating it into a game effect.

I don't really think 5e is so basic that you're lost at sea, or it wouldn't be so successful. All these people buying and playing it are doing it somehow, and most of them are new to the hobby rather than relying on a decade of experience. That's not to say it lacks flaws, it's just different flaws in each edition.

[Bloble]

I'll add on that 5e already gives a baseline for how to rule things: The DMG and PHB both have a table full of typical DCs for general tasks, with 5 being very easy, 15 being moderate, and 30 being nearly impossible. The same books also give, in that very section, a breakdown of how to use ability checks and the sorts of actions each ability can be applied to. From there, using only the table of typical DCs and the table of typical uses for ability scores, one can improvise and rule on pretty much any action in the game.

Wanna catch that branch with your whip? Dex (Sleight of Hand) check, at disadvantage if you're not proficient with the weapon.
Wanna grab that pot of molten metal, carry it across the room, and pour it over a zombie's face? Con check to withstand the heat while you move it, and then an improvised attack roll dealing 4d10 fire damage on hit.
Wanna jury rig that damaged gnomish construct to reactivate and turn against its masters? Intelligence check, with proficiency if you have Thieves Tools.

The one fault of 5e is that its core books do a poor job of teaching the DM to improvise, despite the advice being there already.

[Deathhappens]

If you want to DM and you can't figure out rulings for a fairly straightforward game like 5e you probably don't have the creativity to make the most of running the game in the first place.

The point isn't whether you can or can't do it, a good GM can make up entire systems on the fly. The point is that 5e leaves a lot that should have specific rules to it to the DM to determine, which leads to every single table having to make up a half-dozen house rules just to run the game smoothly. Take Athletics vs Acrobatics, for example, you can ask a hundred DMs which applies to any given situation and probably have a 50/50 split on both.

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I'll add on that 5e already gives a baseline for how to rule things: The DMG and PHB both have a table full of typical DCs for general tasks, with 5 being very easy, 15 being moderate, and 30 being nearly impossible. The same books also give, in that very section, a breakdown of how to use ability checks and the sorts of actions each ability can be applied to. From there, using only the table of typical DCs and the table of typical uses for ability scores, one can improvise and rule on pretty much any action in the game.

Wanna catch that branch with your whip? Dex (Sleight of Hand) check, at disadvantage if you're not proficient with the weapon.
Wanna grab that pot of molten metal, carry it across the room, and pour it over a zombie's face? Con check to withstand the heat while you move it, and then an improvised attack roll dealing 4d10 fire damage on hit.
Wanna jury rig that damaged gnomish construct to reactivate and turn against its masters? Intelligence check, with proficiency if you have Thieves Tools.

The one fault of 5e is that its core books do a poor job of teaching the DM to improvise, despite the advice being there already.

This is exactly the problem. The entire DMG and PHB combined and all you get is "here's a table of basic DCs, here's a super general overview of what each skill and attribute does, figure it out". Yes, there are situations (like jury-rigging an ancient construct) that would only come up once or twice in a campaign and you can just handwave whatever ruling you want, but there's no reason why there's not even a basic set of rules for how to use a whip when whips are explicitly given a stat block, or why there's nothing about how damage from ambient temperature works when there's campaigns that take place in a damn volcano.

You might think all these are easily ruled on by any half-competent DM and you're probably right, but one look at any D&D related Facebook group or sub-reddit should remind you that the world is populated by drooling morons.

[mAc Chaos]

which leads to every single table having to make up a half-dozen house rules just to run the game smoothly. Take Athletics vs Acrobatics, for example, you can ask a hundred DMs which applies to any given situation and probably have a 50/50 split on both.

What's so bad about that?

[Five_X]

You might think all these are easily ruled on by any half-competent DM and you're probably right, but one look at any D&D related Facebook group or sub-reddit should remind you that the world is populated by drooling morons.

If this is your fundamental issue with the way the 5e rules are written, then there's nothing to be done about it. If someone is fundamentally not good at running a game, then it doesn't matter if the rules are handed down to them on clay tablets from God above - they'd still be incompetent. It's quite an indictment indeed for 5e to be described as "not a good system to DM for bad DMs."

[Deathhappens]

What's so bad about that?

It's like a github project with so many forks off the original nobody remembers how it was supposed to work or what it was even supposed to do in the first place.

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If this is your fundamental issue with the way the 5e rules are written, then there's nothing to be done about it. If someone is fundamentally not good at running a game, then it doesn't matter if the rules are handed down to them on clay tablets from God above - they'd still be incompetent. It's quite an indictment indeed for 5e to be described as "not a good system to DM for bad DMs."

My fundamental issue isn't with the rules that are written so much as the ones that aren't, or are written half-way with the rest left to as an excercise for the DM (like most spells). You can call it design strategy or rules-light or whatever else you want, at the end of the day it's still disguised laziness. Regardless of whether a DM CAN figure out effective rulings for the countless elisions of the edition, why should they?

[Bloble]

Because rulings are part of the game. They have been since the 70s. The DM is supposed to use their own judgment, not blindly follow only what's written like a glorified game engine. No two tables of 5e, hell, of most any tabletop RPG, should ever be run the same way.

[Random]

Gonna be, if negotiations go well, running a regular TTRPG mixer for my local game store. I have not met my players yet. I'm currently leaning towards running the FATE system, but the closest thing I've run to it before is Fudge. Don't suppose anyone has any thoughts on it?

[mAc Chaos]

Fudge is more of a traditional D&D style game, while FATE takes it in a narrative and more meta direction. There is an emphasis placed on abstract narrative elements the players can leverage to move the plot in ways they want and to power up their characters. You approach it less like a player trying to be a character, and more like an author trying to write an interesting scene involving a character. The game encourages you to put yourself into risky situations and draw satisfaction from failures to create drama, in the same way that a movie has its main character get banged up to make it be interesting. Even if the character themselves would never want that to happen, the author does. It has a pulpy feel to it; the main characters are all competent and good at what they do, and even if they fail, they find ways to stay in the game. The biggest innovation FATE has is "aspects," which is basically giving your character a description or a title that can then be used to apply benefits or drawbacks depending on what would fit the situation. More than anything the mindset you're supposed to have isn't one where you try to minmax and win, but to do what would make for an interesting story.

[Deathhappens]

Gonna be, if negotiations go well, running a regular TTRPG mixer for my local game store. I have not met my players yet. I'm currently leaning towards running the FATE system, but the closest thing I've run to it before is Fudge. Don't suppose anyone has any thoughts on it?

I don't think FATE is a great idea for a pickup game; a lot of it relies on the interplay between the storyteller using compels and the players using their aspects to co-write scenes together, which is a kind of dynamic that's pretty hard to build with people you've never met before.

[mAc Chaos]

I was thinking about that yesterday. It is not really a good game that works without a lot of player buy in and the random player that walks in is probably expecting a D&D type experience, or won't respect the boundaries of the game and try to powergame the narrative. But hey maybe they're Critical Role fans.

[mAc Chaos]

On the other hand, it's not THAT different, they just have to play in good faith.

[Random]

Hm, hm. This is a good point, and one that I hadn't considered, which probably goes to show my usual groups are spoiling me. In that case, I probably ought to go hunting for something crunchier and more mechanical, similar in scope and complexity, and hash out our options with them over a good session zero.